Saturday, January 27, 2018

Elephant Parade is Finished!

My large quilt guild, Pride of the Prairie, issued a challenge for the upcoming quilt show.  It is a paint chip challenge.  I posted all the info about the challenge on this post. The challenge was issued at the January 2017 meeting.  I got started right away.  This is only the 2nd time I've done one of the challenges for the quilt show.  Most of the entries are 'art' quilts, and that is way out of my realm of comfort.  I'm pretty traditional, not artsy. 

I figured that just using 3 colors from paint chips was something that I might be able to do.  Off to Home Depot I went, and collected tons of paint chips with colors that started with either a C, H, or E (the first three letters of my first name). 

I narrowed the chips down to just 3, and got started.  Once I'd seen the name 'Elephant Gray', I knew what I wanted to do (no, I didn't use that paint chip, since I couldn't find a gray fabric that matched the paint chip).  More info on my next moves are on this post and this post (mainly about the tail). 

After those posts, I put the elephant aside, since I had several things that had 'due dates' long before the elephant challenge quilt.  Then, I found out that I would be a first time Grandma, and, of course the elephant was put aside for the Peter Pan quilt. The Peter Pan quilt took me from August thru December to complete.  Poor elephant, no time to work on it.

Last week, I finally pulled the elephant quilt back out, and got started on finishing it.  In the last 24 hours, I've attached the tail and stitched button leaves to the tree. 
leaf buttons on the tree

A friend thought I should add embroidery to the little elephants for mouths and eyes.  After playing around with a drawing, to see how the mouth should go, and where the eye should go, I decided to add ears to the little elephants instead.
ears on the little elephants
 The ears look much better in person, than in my bad photos. 

Here is the finished elephant quilt.
Elephant Parade, finished

I have decided that this quilt is DONE!  I really like this elephant quilt.  I've done sew many things that I'd not tried before. 

The challenge says that the quilt can't be smaller than 24" or larger than 45".  My elephant measures 31.25" long and 43.75" wide. 

We also have to use at least one handwork method on the quilt (binding doesn't count), and I hand appliqued both little elephants, hand stitched on their ears, hand stitched the buttons on the tree, and braided the tail and attached that, too. 

If you are in the Chicago area, I invite you to come see my quilt(s) and vintage machines at the show.

March 10 & 11, 2018
Richland Grade School
1919 Caton Farm Road
Crest Hill, IL 60403








18 comments:

  1. Just love this! Good for you in stretching yourself, the results are wonderful. I wish I was closer to attend and visit you (and your chairs).

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  3. Wow... this is not what I had pictured when you said you had an elephant quilt in the works!!! It is great! I love it.

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  4. Love, love, love your elephant quilt! You've done very well and I'm sure it will be well received at the show. Best of luck!

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  5. Great quilt. I like your herd of elephants.

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  6. This is a special and amazing quilt! You really had a vision and went for it head first! Love the subtle texture in the greens to anchor the quilt. Your appliques are so great! The elephants big and small are perfect. Wish I could see it for real Congrats on a super finish.

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  7. Love, love, love it! Now I am feeling really bad about not making the Quilt Show. ~Jeanne

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  8. I hope you win a prize for this quilt, it is so creative!!

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  9. WOW!!! You did a fantastic job! Love it!

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  10. Cheryl, your elephants are so cute and I love the pose you used. It is definitely an "art quilt" and I think worthy of an award. You have more creative talents than you give yourself credit for.


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  11. You did a bang up job on your elephant. Do I remember that it was made to honor your Mom who loved elephants? Good job.
    Hugs

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  12. Very creative! I think you are better at art quilting than you think.

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  13. Awesome Cheryl!! You really stepped outside your comfort zone :-). Wish I could come to your show, but that's just a tad far from where I live LOL. We can dream though eh?

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  14. I'm trying this again. Google, I want my comments back in my inbox!!!!

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